RTI query on state civic corporations’ transparency: ‘Since report is in submission no information can be provided’

Mumbai: Government has no interest in ensuring transparency in working of Municipal corporations in Maharashtra. The three-member committee appointed to recommend measures to ensure transparency in the working of all municipal corporations including Mumbai, is gathering dust for the past 132 days, as per the information provided to RTI activist Anil Galgali leading to speculation about the intention of the government in implementing the recommendations.

RTI activist Anil Galgali had sought information from the Urban Development Department of the Maharashtra government seeking copy of the report of the three-member committee comprising senior retired IAS officers namely Gautam Chatterjee, Sharad Kale and Ramnath Jha for the purpose of suggestions of measures to ensure transperancy in working of all municipal corporation in Maharashtra including Mumbai. He also sought the details of action taken on the report which was handed over to UD Principal Secretary Manisha Mhaiskar on March 31, 2018.

In response to the query, Sachin Sahasrabuddhe, Under Secretary of the UD department replied that, since the report is in submission no information can be provided on the same. The Maharashtra government had constituted a committee of three retired senior bureaucrats namely Gautam Chatterjee, Sharad Kale and Ramnath Jha for recommendations of measures to be adopted for ensuring transperancy in the working of the municipal corporation and had directed the report to be submitted within three months of the constitution. Now almost 132 has passed that the report has been handed over and the government has yet to look into it regretted Anil Galgali. Galgali further stated that in the state the Right to Services has already been implemented and yet the bureaucrats have no time to look into a report for 132 days is in itself sad. He said it’s time that CM himself should look into the matter now.

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